General view of the Job Centre Plus on Benalder St in Glasgow
UNIONS hit out at an “epidemic of insecure work” as the economic fallout from the Iran war was revealed for the first time today.
Youth unemployment has risen to its highest rate in more than a decade with one in seven (14.7 per cent) 16 to 24-year-olds looking for work.
Zero-hours contracts have hit a record high of 1.23 million — up 65,000 on the year.
The first official statistics since the war broke out in late February also showed job vacancies down to their lowest level for 11 years outside of the pandemic. They fell by 28,000 to 705,000 in the three months ending in March.
Youngsters looking for their first job face a fiercely competitive jobs market with 22.7 per cent now out of work for more than a year, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found.
…
TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said: “The ongoing economic fallout from Donald Trump’s illegal war in Iran risks dashing hopes of a stabilising jobs market.
“There is an epidemic of insecure work in this country.
“That’s why the government needs to deliver on its promise to give all workers a right to a contract which reflects their regular hours and end the scourge of insecure work for good.”
The main driver for the increase in the forecast energy price cap is rising wholesale gas and electricity prices. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA
Cornwall Insight predicts rise in price cap of nearly 13% in Great Britain as Iran war pushes up gas costs
Energy bills for households in Great Britain could increase by more than £200 a year to almost £1,900 from this summer in “a kick in the teeth” for millions struggling with the cost of living crisis.
A typical gas and electricity bill is forecast to rise to the equivalent of £1,850 a year from July under the industry regulator Ofgem’s quarterly price cap, according to analysis by the energy consultancy Cornwall Insight.
The expected level is nearly 13% higher than the £1,641 cap on energy bills set for April to June, adding £209 to a typical annual bill, after the Iran war caused the UK’s gas market price to double earlier this year.
The main driver for the increase is rising wholesale energy prices, according to Cornwall. Prices climbed sharply in February and March after Tehran effectively cut off Gulf energy supplies to the global market by shutting the strait of Hormuz in response to the US-Israeli strikes on Iran.
…
Cornwall said that, even if the Iran war ended tomorrow, “the physical damage to infrastructure, and lingering effect of disrupted supply, means a fall back to April’s price cap levels in the autumn looks unlikely”.
Its principal consultant, Craig Lowrey, said: “If the cap stays at a similar level as July, that is when the government will need to think seriously about targeted support for the most vulnerable.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
Fuel prices are displayed on a sign as a customer fills their vehicle at a gas station on April 13, 2026 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
“We are living on borrowed time,” said one economist about global oil prices.
With no end in sight to the Strait of Hormuz crisis caused by President Donald Trump’s illegal war with Iran, the head of the International Energy Agency warned Monday that global energy supplies are running dangerously low.
IEA executive director Faith Birol told reporters in Paris that the world only has weeks’ worth of oil reserves left, raising the likelihood that energy prices will soar even higher in the near future.
Birol said that oil inventories are “declining rapidly” and added that there was “a perception gap in the markets between the physical markets and the financial markets,” as the price of oil in futures markets has not yet risen to a level that accurately reflects the coming supply crunch.
In his remarks to the press, given on the sidelines of a G7 gathering taking place this week in France,Birol warned that it’s only a matter of time before the supply shortage of fertilizer, which was also caused by the Iran War, leads to a surge in food prices that “might give a big push to inflation numbers.”
The Financial Times reported on Sunday that energy markets are approaching a “tipping point” where prices could see another upward surge that would throw the global economy into a recession.
Paul Diggle, chief economist at fund manager Aberdeen, told The Financial Times that he has been modeling the economic impact of oil hitting $180 per barrel, which he said would set off a global inflation crisis.
“We are taking that outcome very seriously,” Diggle said. “We are living on borrowed time.”
Oil prices briefly fell last month after the US and Iran announced a ceasefire agreement. However, the Strait of Hormuz has remained closed throughout that period, and Trump is reportedly preparing to restart attacks on Iran in the near future if no deal to reopen the strait is reached.
In a Sunday Truth Social post, Trump again threatened Iran with destruction unless it agrees to his demands.
“For Iran, the Clock is Ticking, and they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them,” the president wrote. “TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!”
Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
US President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after arriving on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, on May 15, 2026. (Photo by Alex Wroblewski/AFP via Getty Images)
“The only realistic path to a diplomatic breakthrough would require Washington to engage more directly with the structure and substance of the Iranian proposal itself,” said a national security expert.
With the economic impact of the war on Iran linked to President Donald Trump’s plummeting approval rating, the president issued his latest threat to destroy the Middle Eastern country Sunday as he demanded negotiators “get moving, FAST” to end the conflict the US and Israel began by choice in February.
“For Iran, the Clock is Ticking,” said the president in a Truth Social post, adding that if a peace deal is not reached soon, “there won’t be anything left of them. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!”
Trump rejected Iran’s latest peace proposal last week; the country has reportedly offered significant concessions on its uranium enrichment, but seeks to have separate nuclear talks after achieving peace and reaching a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which the Iranians effectively closed in retaliation for the US-Israeli attacks.
Since launching the conflict, Trump has demanded the dismantling of Iran’s missile arsenal as well as its nuclear program, which Iran has said is not for military purposes, and has called for the country to cut ties with its regional allies.
Iran’s Mehr news agency said Sunday that Trump had offered “no tangible concessions” in his response to the Iranians’ latest proposal.
“The United States,” said the news outlet, “wants to obtain concessions that it failed to obtain during the war, which will lead to an impasse in the negotiations.”
Trump told Fox News in Beijing over the weekend that the Iranians are “crazy, and you know what? Because of that, they cannot have a nuclear weapon,” explaining why he viewed it as “unacceptable” for nuclear talks to take place separately after a peace deal is brokered.
Trump reportedly spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Sunday about the possibility of renewing strikes on Iran, which would break a ceasefire that was reached more than a month ago.
Danny Citrinowicz, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, said Sunday that “the only realistic path to a diplomatic breakthrough would require Washington to engage more directly with the structure and substance of the Iranian proposal itself.”
“Iran’s priorities remain consistent: ending what it views as economic siege conditions, reopening maritime access and reducing pressure in the Gulf, negotiating an end to the broader conflict, and only afterward addressing the nuclear issue,” said Citrinowicz. “At the present moment, it is difficult to see the Iranian leadership agreeing to any framework that does not meaningfully engage with those core demands.”
As with Trump’s earlier threats of violence, including one in April in which he declared that Iran’s entire civilization would die, “never to be brought back again,” Iranian officials said the president’s latest comments—which followed his posting of an image of himself on a military ship accompanied by the words, “It was the calm before the storm”—would not be tolerated.
A spokesperson for Iran’s armed forces, Abolfazl Shakarchi, told Mehr that “repeating any folly to compensate for America’s disgrace in the Third Imposed War against Iran will result in nothing but receiving more crushing and severe blows.”
Reporting for Al Jazeera, correspondent Almigdad Alruhaid said that the “kind of language” displayed by Trump on Sunday “is not acceptable here in Tehran. They are projecting defiance rather than [giving] an immediate response to this kind of rhetoric.”
“Behind all of this rhetoric, there is awareness that the diplomatic window right now is narrowing,” said Alruhid.
Meanwhile, US Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) urged Trump to “hurt them more” in order to force a deal, calling on the president to go through with bombing Iran’s energy infrastructure as he’s threatened to in recent months.
Uber-warmonger Lindsey Graham calls on Trump to bomb Iran's energy infrastructure.
The reason why Trump didn't do this during the war – despite threatening it – was because he realized Tehran would retaliate and take out the energy infrastructure in the GCC states. This would… pic.twitter.com/rvrewkavNr
“The reason why Trump didn’t do this during the war—despite threatening it—was because he realized Tehran would retaliate and take out the energy infrastructure in the [Gulf Cooperation Council] states,” said Trita Parsi, executive vice president at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “This would lead to a far worse oil crisis—one rooted in production problems, not just a bottleneck in the Persian Gulf.”
“The global economy would be thrown into a deep recession. Fuel shortages would lead to food shortages worldwide. Trump’s presidency would be destroyed,” he said. “None of this matters to Lindsey. He’ll burn the entire planet as long as he gets his war. Trump’s biggest mistake has been to listen to Lindsey and his allies.”
Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone …Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says disinhibition and swearing are typical and common symptoms, small Orca speaks bluntly.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to members of the press before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, United States, on May 12, 2026. [Kyle Mazza – Anadolu Agency]
US President Donald Trump on Sunday warned Iran, saying the “Clock is Ticking” for them to “get moving” before “there won’t be anything left of them,” Anadolu reports.
His remarks came amid repeated threats for Tehran to agree to a ceasefire.
“TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!” he said on his Truth Social media account.
General view of the Job Centre Plus on Benalder St in Glasgow
